The present invention is related to treatment of glass waste, and more specifically to methods and mixtures for coating glass waste.
Glass waste has created enormous challenges for the waste disposal and glass recycling industries. This is so, because glass waste includes deposits of heavy metals, such as lead that can leach out into the environment from the glass waste. In turn, the heavy metals can enter a municipality""s sewage and water supply causing detrimental environmental affects.
Moreover, recycling glass is manually intensive and expensive. This is so because one vendor of glass may use different concentrations of lead in their glass products than another glass vendor. As a result, in order to recycle the glass waste, the waste must be separated into vendor specific categories so that each vendor receives glass waste that can be reused by them. Glass waste with different concentrations of lead will melt, spread, and solidify at different temperatures, and therefore glass vendors can only reuse glass waste that has the proper amount of lead concentrations that is used in their glass manufacturing process.
Because of the expense and time consuming nature associated with recycling glass waste, many waste disposal facilities have resorted to illegal disposal of glass waste. This is where the glass waste is not properly treated according to state and federal Environmental Protection Agencies (EPAs). This is extremely dangerous to the people that live near any such facility.
Glass waste associated with computer monitors, such as Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) monitors, and television sets are particular troublesome for glass recyclers and waste disposal facilities, because these monitors include high levels of lead. In the past, one solution has been to ship these monitors to other countries for disposal, such as China. However, in recent years these third-world or developing countries have started to refuse these monitors because of the health hazards this waste has created for their citizens.
Presently, a popular and temporarily legal technique for disposing of computer monitors is a smelting technique. A smelting process melts the glass of the monitor at an extremely high temperature and then extracts the lead off the top of the liquid produced. However, the EPA has authorized this process only as a stopgap measure since until recently no other viable technique existed to safely dispose of monitor glass. The reason why the EPA has only temporarily authorized this processes is because the process produces toxic gas as a byproduct and cross contaminates the glass with other toxins. Some toxins and other heavy metals produced by the smelting process include Selenium arsenic. Therefore, the EPA realizes that it cannot continue to permit the smelting process to continue indefinitely and is actively pursuing and promoting research to replace the process.
Another recent technique attempts to create a specialized clay mixture that is mixed with the glass waste, with the assumption that waste will adhere to the clay, and the clay will absorb any heavy metals that leach out from the glass waste. However, over time the heavy metals will leach out from the clay and into the environment. Thus, this technique does not appear to be a solution to the problem and may only delay future environmental catastrophes.
CRT disposal or television disposal is a major environmental challenge for the United States, this challenge continues to escalate as more and more organizations and people continue to buy and dispose of CRT monitors and televisions at alarming rates. Currently, CRT waste is the number two contributor to hazardous lead waste in the United States. This problem will only continue to grow over the next several years as liquid crystal and/or plasma screen technology is integrated into the industry and individuals/organizations accelerate their disposal rates of the CRT monitors.
However, very recently Tristate xe2x80x9cExe2x80x9d Recycling of Ohio introduced methods and systems that can efficiently and environmentally treat glass waste. These methods and systems crush the glass waste to extremely small glass particles. The particles are then treated in an acid solution that removes heavy metals from the surface of the particles. The acid solution and particles are mixed for a period of time, and then the particles are rinsed. The remaining particles are environmental safe because the diameter of each particle is small enough that even under extreme circumstances and forces no heavy metal will leach into the environment.
However, presently even glass waste that is environmentally safe is used for the sole purpose of disposing the glass waste or recycling the glass back to the original glass manufactures. That is, the entire industry has been consumed with efficiently and economically disposing of glass waste or reusing the glass waste in products that originally produced the glass waste (e.g., CRT monitors, televisions, and the like.
Moreover, even glass waste that is not environmentally hazardous, such as household products (e.g., beverage glasses), is not capable of being pigmented to a different color during any subsequent recycling process. Accordingly, there are presently no known or published techniques for further treating glass waste or re-coloring glass waste to make useful and new products that can be introduced into the marketplace.
Therefore, there is a need for new techniques that coat glass waste and can re-color the glass waste to other colors not originally associated with the glass waste. These coating techniques should further ensure the safety of the glass waste and permit a variety of new uses and products associated with the glass waste in the marketplace.
Briefly and in general terms, methods are provided for coating glass waste that has been made environmentally safe. The coating on the glass waste makes the waste more environmentally safe by further encapsulating any residual heavy metals on the waste. The coating can also include coloring to give the glass waste desired visual appearances. Once coated the glass waste can be safely used in a variety of products, such as, and by way of example only, garden mulch, playground mulch, decorative landscaping, road coatings, and the like.
More specifically, and in one embodiment, a method to coat glass waste is presented. The glass waste is coated with a mixture. The mixture includes a universal resin, a solvent, a flow modifier, an adhesion modifier, a curing agent, and a colorant. Next, the coated glass waste is cured.
Still other aspects of the present invention will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art from the following description of various embodiments. As will be realized the invention is capable of other embodiments, all without departing from the present invention. Accordingly, the drawings and descriptions are illustrative in nature and not intended to be restrictive.